To think this is more than hormones with DS?

[MiaThermopolis]

Quick background: DS1 is 10. Eldest of 4 DC. He's a 'gifted' child acedemically - scoring over 95% in 11+ practice tests etc. He is highly logical with a huge 'justice chip' and obessed with things being 'fair'. Avid reader, robotics, lego and nature/animals. no interest in any sport. Good healthy balanced diet. School say he is polite, helpful, well mannered as do other parents when he has gone to play.

The issue is his behaviour/temper at home. For the last 12-18months it seems to be getting worse.

Examples: All DC have a daily tick list - a couple of chores along with the standard 'get up, get dressed, make bed' etc. Chores are on a rota so everyone has the same number of 'set up breakfast' 'empty dishwasher' 'do laundry' etc. it is completely fair and equal. Yet every time we tell DS to get on with his list he growls, huffs, scowls that its not fair. if he then doesnt do it and we ask him again to get on with it he starts screaming in our faces 'I'M DOING IT!' (when he's clearly not) or 'I DONT WANT TO!' etc.

He reacts this way to being asked to do anything that may consitute a 'job' or 'chore'.

Once he's in a temper about something he will then scream at anyone and everyone. For example if one of the other DCs come to ask me a question he will scream 'I DONT CARE!' at them or 'SHUT UP'.

We have a clearly laid out set of consequences - first they loose a token from their reward tube, then screens are removed for the day, then its go to bed early. we are very consistant with this.

It's like a red mist desends and he cannot calm down once something has set him off and he can wizz through all those consequences in minutes as he seems not to hear us or will not respond to us asking him to leave the room to calm down.

He has his own room which we have sorted with him to make it a nice private space and have tried to encourage him to take a break up there when he feels angry but once the red mist descends he wont go.

He can also be violent, hitting walls, slamming doors, growling and screaming in the other DCs faces. he will also lash out has his siblings.

DH and I are at our wits end with it. we are doing all the 'right' things - he gets one on one time with us, he has his own room, he has clear boundaries and consequences but nothing seems to be improving this.

Yet in between he is the sweetest, cleverest, most interesting boy. we joke often that he would be a perfect only child (as a lot of anger starts with his siblings and the perceived 'not fair' devision of work). When we have him on his own he is an absolute delight.

I spoke to his teacher who said it is likely to be hormones and puberty starting but part of me is wondering could it be signs that he has some level of autism? anyone had similar and successfully navigated it?

Help please!!

polly not that you wish the problems you have on others but yes it’s so reassuring to know others are in the same boat isn’t it?!

So I’m resolved to not engage at all while he’s red mustang and to try and encourage him to take a time out to calm down.

We do encourage lots of outdoor time but I will keep more of an eye on him to make sure he’s getting the phyisical release.

On the chores thing- I will not raise snowflakes! Kids need to learn how to do household tasks and my thought process is start them young so it becomes second nature to make your bed before you leave your room etc. Non of them are that time consuming.

Also DC 2 and 3 are twins so both 8. Having said that even the 3 year old attempts to make her bed and helps lay the table.

I have ordered a couple of books and will be looking into PDA in particular as that on the surface looks similar to what we are experiencing.

• red misting- not mustang!!

Interested in what people think is an appropriate amount of chores for a 10 year old?

Re. The schedule. Does he/the other get pocket money? My 10&12 year old know that they wont get their pocket money If they don’t help out when asked, don’t do their school work without a fuss. I’ve withheld it a couple times, and it works.
I don’t have a rigid chore rota however, I just expect them to do what I ask, without having a major strop on (they at the same point with their hormones atm, I have 2 “Kevin’s”...)

Chores here are:
10yr old - empty 1/2 the dishwasher, put her own washing away, watch rabbits in the garden for 30mins, keep room relatively tidy.
Additional might be - get washing off the line, set the table, help cook.

12yr old - empty the other half of the dishwasher, take rubbish out daily, sweep kitchen floor, keep room relatively tidy. Other chores might be - get washing in, hover and wash car, hoover front room, set the table, help cook.

The chores are slightly different as I play to their strengths.

OP, your DS sounds so much like mine, and mine has ASD, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that your DS has ASD - there could be other reasons for the apparent similarities.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what you expect from your children, but I also know that my DS (now 15) can’t tolerate being told to do anything immediately: he gets stressed and angry. However, if I ask him politely to do something in the next half hour, and explain why, he’ll usually do it with good grace. The explanation is key, and he might need a gentle reminder - it has to be a gentle reminder because if I snap at him he gets enraged. It’s been challenging because his dad’s attitude is very much ‘children should do as they’re told,’ which doesn’t work with DS, because he simply doesn’t recognise authority of any kind.

And yes, plenty of outdoor time makes a massive difference with my DS (actually with all my DC).

Sounds like autism with a PDA profile. My ds12 has this, and is exactly the same. The good behaviour that is 'switched on' at school or with house guests is due to masking, but is exhausting for the child. The hormone surge at this age also makes it more apparent. Do as other pps have said and get it checked out.

My 9yo started melting down during lockdown, it was a scary time. Absolute red mist, lashing out (I had a black eye), and always triggered by any demand on him. We'd tried to keep normal routines going for stability but it was wrong for him, the world was so topsy turvy I think almost the reminders of "normal" life made things worse. We had to pare everything right back to get a semblance of calm. Not giving in, giving him what he needed.
Does the instrument practice really matter right now? If he doesn't practice he takes the natural consequences of disappointing his teacher etc. If he adores his pet, can you switch his (massive!) chore list so he does pet feeding every day and doesn't cook.
To me, he sounds overwhelmed. You have a big family, which is not his fault. You've all been cooped up for months and he hasn't had the break he'd normally have. These have been strange times for everyone, but especially kids. Maybe just dial everything down a bit?

I accept that lockdown has added a huge amount of pressure but this was escalating well before that.

If I wanted to get him assessed how would i go about that? Do i start with the GP?

OP I really think you should talk to your GP. If you base your information from this thread your DS has normal tantrums, hormones, ASD, PDA and everything in between.

I think If you are concerned enough to post about his issues you should talk to a professional.

For what it is worth I think your chore list is fine. Mine all had chores at that age and by the time they were teens the chores were second nature. It meant that was one teen battle we didn’t have.

weakandwobbly the masking idea and that it's tiring for them - would that make sense if he would typically have an outburst very soon after coming home from school? or soon after having a nice day out/time with friends?

Everyone is fixated on teh chores! that is not the only thing that causes outbursts, it was just the example used for the OP so i didn't go on too long.

doodley thank you, that is my hope as suddenly flinging chores at teens when they've done none before seemed a bad idea! I was hoping for the 'second nature' aspect too.

A lot of young teens are not in a good place mentally after schools closed, a combination of fear , boredom and general anxiety

My youngest teen is having a hard time of it, I am so so anxious to get him back to “normal” as he needs his peers and he needs other people around him other than mum and dad

Not saying you should mollycoddle him, but the things he is lashing out about (chores) may not really be what’s behind this

I think a combination of hormones
ts not really hormones that cause it, but the brain rewiring itself

Hi OP, sorry I don't have much to add but wanted to say you sound like an amazing mum. You've clearly tried lots of tactics, the chores don't sound too onerous to me. Hope you get some help and support.

I wonder if the chore thing would help if you did what I did for ds?

I agree laying a table and making bed, curtains etc are part of normal life. Not so much chores.

With ds his autism presents that he sees what he wants to do but struggles to plan and endgame with the bits in between!

So because he could also have iPad before school when ready I made a puzzle. A piece for everything he had to do.

I had a laminated square of 9 things. Each square had a 'job'. When he'd done that job he out there puzzle piece in top and when he was done he'd completed a picture of his iPad and could have it!

We had

Brush teeth
Wash hands and face
Eat breakfast
Put bowl in sink
Get dressed
Make bed
Open curtains
Pack bag
Get lunch box

The advantage was it also limited the demands. Because ds has the freedom to do these jobs in whatever order he needed or wanted.

The most injured from me was when he was standing and flapping and looking confused I could just ask "have you checked your puzzle?"

You can make them for all parts of the day and the pictures can be whatever the activity is at the end.

DS is the same as yours. Highly intelligent with regards to learning in school but actually then it came to organisation and motor planning he was really struggling and the stress was actually the not knowing how to do what was expected rather than actually doing it.

@MiaThermopolis

I accept that lockdown has added a huge amount of pressure but this was escalating well before that.

If I wanted to get him assessed how would i go about that? Do i start with the GP?

Yes. I'd copy and paste all your posts at the start together and take that. It gives a really good and clear picture

@MiaThermopolis

weakandwobbly the masking idea and that it's tiring for them - would that make sense if he would typically have an outburst very soon after coming home from school? or soon after having a nice day out/time with friends?

Yes. It's like blowing up a balloon and it gets stretched to capacity until it bursts

itsgettingweird thats all really helpful. I would find myself completely flummoxed by the fact he'd be all happy having had a nice day and then explode - my mind would be 'you were so happy, how can you go from that to meltdown in 5 seconds over something really small'. but that makes sense. for example he'd come home from school all happy and then i'd ask him to put his shoes away as he dumps them in the middle of the floor and he'd lose it.

I will make a list of all the behaviours and call the GP. it would be good to know one way or the other and hopefully access some support for helping him learn to deal with it.

One of the most effective ways of dealing with this type of behaviour is to disengage, but that's also one of the hardest things to do as a parent because, generally, as adults we like to have 'control' of the situation.

Trying to reason with, or give consequences to, a child in the middle of a tantrum is counterproductive for both parties. It sounds to me like you have got stuck in a cycle and routine that's not working for either of you. Instead of (or as well as) trying to look for something to justify his behaviour you need to look at what you can do to break the cycle.

You have to parent your children as individuals and find strategies that work for them. Often I hear 'ones awful but their siblings aren't and we've done nothing different' and frequently therein lies the problem. I have two boys (19/22 now), the oldest I could always fall back on 'I'm going to count to 3....' and I never reached 3, the youngest I could count to 103 and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference so we found other ways of dealing with him.

Calmness on your part is also imperative. A quiet low voice often works far better than shouting or getting snippy. If he's in a temper for instance and is screaming 'it's not fair' at being asked to do something you could acknowledge his feelings without engaging by carrying on with what you are doing and saying 'I know, it's tough being 10 isn't it' in a calm, matter of fact voice. If he then carries on just walk away, if he follows you walk away again. You could say in a calm quiet voice 'I'm not talking to you until you are calmer' but stay disengaged.

Remember to praise him for the job he's done, even if he has done it unwillingly. Maybe he could earn screen time if that's something he's interested in? An hour a day is nothing and it won't hurt to increase it a bit. So if he does his chores he gets an extra 15 mins, if he does them without drama he gets an extra 30 mins. And it can similarly be taken away for things that do matter such as lashing out at his siblings.

I get that you need routine (I am one of 6 children) but routines need flexibility and yours sounds quite rigid. Why make a child practise a musical instrument if they don't want to? Does he even want to learn it or do you want him to learn it? Why do they have to 'make the bed'? If it's just a duvet does it even matter if it's pulled straight or not? Think about your reasons for making rules.

I haven't been in my boys rooms since they were about 11. It's easy to have natural consequences and teach them responsibility but it entails you stepping back which will require strength on your part. His room being messy and having an unmade bed only impacts on him so leave him to it. Similarly with his washing etc. I didn't go into the boys rooms for anything so if they didn't bring things down to wash then they stayed dirty. My youngest went to school on Monday morning in rumpled/dirty clothes from his bedroom floor more than once but it didn't take long for it to change.

You need to talk about all this stuff when he is calm. It's not an easy fix but it does work. Give him some control over the things that really don't need rules (such as making the bed) and in time the rest will improve.

Of course every family has rules that need to be adhered to but try not to make ones that are unnecessary just for the sake of it.

But NT DCs can also have outbursts after school because they're tired and hungry. Often if my DC seems bad-tempered for no reason, I'll stop them and say 'are you hungry?tired?'
Our DC also did a children's meditation class and found it very helpful, and we do visualisation exercises at night around how to manage emotions.
As for chores, I don't think the list is extensive but it may be the structure that is creating tension or anxiety. Our DC (similar age) sets the table, clears the table, makes their bed, puts their laundry away, tidies their room. Other tasks vary depending on what we're doing but can include hoovering, dusting, emptying the dishwasher.

@itsgettingweird So because he could also have iPad before school when ready I made a puzzle. A piece for everything he had to do.

I had a laminated square of 9 things. Each square had a 'job'. When he'd done that job he out there puzzle piece in top and when he was done he'd completed a picture of his iPad and could have it!

That's a fabulous idea 👍🏻

Is he happy as long as something is happening on his terms ?

Does he have difficulty turn taking ?

Does he mimic how his siblings play or is it his way ?

Does he play imaginatively ?

Does he need warning that an activity is stopping or he is moving on to do something else ?

How sensory is he ? You mentioned hair and clothes. Nails cutting ? Etc

Through your posts I can see a few things that could indicate a sensory processing , autistic features or PDD slight difficulty. Its not saying it is this but I think there may be more going on than being defiant.

I also think that you feel there is more. You have set strong consequences and simple expectations and he seems to be struggling with them.

It sounds a whole lot like ASD - it's much more easy to hide ASD if you are gifted as you just behave well at school because you love learning and rules and achieve well so everyone is delighted with you.

Then puberty hits, hormones run amok and suddenly social skills are a whole lot more important and life is just much much harder.

[quote nokidshere]**@itsgettingweird* So because he could also have iPad before school when ready I made a puzzle. A piece for everything he had to do.*

I had a laminated square of 9 things. Each square had a 'job'. When he'd done that job he out there puzzle piece in top and when he was done he'd completed a picture of his iPad and could have it!

That's a fabulous idea 👍🏻
[/quote]
And the best bit

I got to use my laminator 🤣